System and method for intelligent sales engagement

ABSTRACT

A system for automatically automatic workflow triggering using real-time analytics, comprising an analytics server that receives and analyzes interaction information and a workflow server that produces workflow events based on the analysis, sends workflow events to handlers for processing, retrieves workflow-related data, and produces workflow reports for review, and a method for automatically automatic workflow triggering using real-time analytics.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

The present application claims the benefit of and priority to U.S.provisional application Ser. No. 62/304,926 titled “SYSTEM AND METHODFOR INTELLIGENT SALES ENGAGEMENT” filed on Mar. 7, 2016, the entirespecification of which is incorporated herein by reference in itsentirety.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Discussion of the State of the Art

Business-to-Business (B2B) selling has a long history spanning over halfa century. The 1960's were dominated by in-person sales pitches, the1990's and the growth of the internet saw the introduction of emailselling and, in the late 1990s, Customer Relationship Management (CRM)systems were deployed. The first decade of the 21^(st) century haswitnessed the rise of social networks and social media being used as anew channel to generate leads.

The Purchase Funnel

The concept of managing a sales process through a set of pre-definedsales funnel or pipeline states dates back to the late 1800's.

Today B2B companies routinely use software and basic analytics to managethe sales pipeline, practicing management-by-exception for prospectsthat fall outside the bands of expected sales stage durations.

However today, as customers become more empowered with on-line knowledgeand sellers become more empowered with vast amounts of data aboutprospects the process is no longer linear. Prospects can enter a funnelat almost any stage and can remain in a stage for long periods of timeor jump backward and forward between stages. In both B2B and B2Cbusinesses, customers are doing their own research both online and withtheir colleagues and friends. Prospects are essentially navigatingthemselves through the funnel.

The Customer Decision Journey

In an attempt to account for this nonlinear nature of the sales process,an alternative to the linear funnel is the Customer Decision Journeypopularized by McKinsey. In this model the journey is circular andprospects move through an ongoing set of touch points before, during,and after a purchase.

The circular Customer Decision Journey is an improvement over thetraditional funnel, but it is incomplete for several reasons. The statechange from the customer point of view is the experience and not thepurchase however. The focus is still on the transaction. So the CustomerDecision Journey is essentially only a circular funnel.

The Customer Engagement Journey

In an attempt to shift the focus from the transaction to therelationship the circular model has more recently been replaced by theCustomer Engagement Journey. In this engagement-focused model,transactions occur in the context of the relationship rather thanrelationships in the context of the transaction. The focus is more onengagement than decision. This can be taken even a step further byconsidering a User Experience Journey in which opportunities fortransactions are strategically inserted.

Need for a New Platform

The Customer Decision Journey, the funnel and other “topologies”described above are widely used today and work satisfactorily inspecific cases. However software vendors provide platforms that canhandle only certain types of flows and require significant amounts ofhuman design upfront each time they are implemented. As a result theyare rigid and cannot adaptive to new behavioral patterns and experiencesthat are rapidly emerging through new means of engagement andtransaction on the internet, via mobile devices and social networks. Ascustomers become more empowered with on-line knowledge and sellersbecome more empowered with vast amounts of data a new kind of platformis required to manage the complexity of the sales processes in a moreautomated way that requires less human up-front and configuration andcan dynamically evolve in a way that could not be matched by humanredesigning.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The current invention is a platform that embodies recent advances inmachine learning and optimization technology to automatically learn,evolve and optimize journeys of arbitrary topology within reduced humaninput. The platform can be pre-configured with predefined topology flowssuch as funnels, journeys, or other topologies decided in advance by ahuman. But the system can also learn a topology flow from data or evolvean existing flow to a better one. It can, if permitted, dynamicallyevolve over time. It is left to the human to define what a betteroutcome actually is, and to define the constraints experiences, theevolution and the resources to be consumed.

The three core components of the invention are (i) a flexiblemathematical graph software module for accumulating real world eventsand representing them as transitions that occur between states andmanipulating the graphs, (ii) a machine learning module for buildingpredictive models for the transitions between states on the graph,finding anomalies and simplifying the graph, and (iii) an optimizationframework for generating decisions and real world actions that increasethe value of the overall business objective to be maximized by theplatform given a set of business, experiential or financial constraints

Of specific importance is that the platform disclosed can self learn andthen derive a sales process that strikes an optimal balance betweenfocus on experience, engagement and transaction.

According to a preferred embodiment of the invention, a system forintelligent sales engagement, comprising: a pre-integrated graph modulecomprising at least a plurality of programming instructions stored in amemory and operating on a processor of a network-connected computingdevice, a machine learning module comprising at least a plurality ofprogramming instructions stored in a memory and operating on a processorof a network-connected computing device and an optimization modulecomprising at least a plurality of programming instructions stored in amemory and operating on a processor of a network-connected computingdevice. The pre-integrated graph module: monitors and captures eventsfrom source systems and constructs an event graph of multichannelinteractions and attributes including firm demographics and sales repattributes, automatically reduces the graph to the significant statetransitions, effectively reverse engineering the sales process fromavailable actual event data, runs in an adaptive mode where reducing thegraph happens periodically or continuously, and supports differentpre-defined topologies of funnel, circle and journey. The machinelearning module: trains a family of predictive machine-learning models(e.g. Distributed Random Forest, Deep Learning) for any transition ofinterest (or for all transitions) of the reduced graph and performsvalidation of the accuracy (AUC) of each predictive machine learningmodel, chooses different model types for different transitions based onmodel with highest accuracy, model then estimates the conditionalprobability of the transition from the starting to ending statepotentially including all known input attributes at the starting state,accepts arbitrary numbers of input attributes of different types on eachstate transitions, runs with either full state history with attributes,Markov approximation or hidden Markov model or a hybrid mode; andsupports a hidden Markov model to represent the hidden “intent” state ofthe contact or lead. The optimization module: creates a set ofvisualizations showing the various resulting performance metricsincluding conversion rate, representative utilization percent, and totalvalue in the pipeline, uses the trained predictive models as input to anautomated optimization phase which recommends specific actions(interactions) to take to optimize the business outcome of prospectsflowing through the reduced graph subject to constraints, supportsoptimization under uncertainty; schedules interactions between agentsand prospects to maximize an objective, and configures, in addition toexisting model optimization, optimization experiments that are executedand is then able to run experiments, analyze the results and self-learngiving rise to increased utility.

According to another embodiment of the invention, the expected salesprocess may be entered as input to guide graph reduction and/orhighlight deviations from expected flows. Wherein the graph may alsorepresent B2B flows and B2C flows. The machine learning module may learnor reverse engineer a process based on historical data. The machinelearning module may account for the multi-dimensional nature of socialinfluence, and the role of advocates who aren't customers. The machinelearning module may shift to ongoing relationships beyond individualtransactions. The machine learning module runs in an adaptive mode whereretraining happens periodically or continuously The optimization modulecan use the trained predictive models can be used to support a “what-if”user interface for human users to understand the effect of change ofattributes or graph structure.

According to another preferred embodiment of the invention, a method forintelligent sales engagement, the method comprising the steps of: (a)monitoring and extracting sets of customer relationship sales data fromsource systems into a pre-integrated graph module comprising at least aplurality of programming instructions stored in a memory and operatingon a processor of a network-connected computing device. (b) constructingan event driven relational graph of multichannel interactions andattributes including firm demographics and sales representativeattributes using the pre-integrated graph module. (c) reducing the graphto the significant state transition occurrences, effectively reverseengineering the sales process from available actual event dataexpressing the resultant graph in one of a plurality of pre-definedtopologies such as: funnel, circle and journey using the pre-integratedgraph module. (d) training a family of predictive machine-learningmodels, such as Distributed Random Forest, Deep Learning for anytransition of interest (or for all transitions) of the reduced graph andperforms validation of the accuracy (AUC) of each predictive machinelearning model using a machine learning module comprising at least aplurality of programming instructions stored in a memory and operatingon a processor of a network-connected computing device. (e) choosingdifferent model types using the machine learning module for differenttransitions based on model with highest accuracy, chosen model thenestimates conditional probability of the transition from the starting toending state potentially including all known input attributes at thestarting state. (f) running either full state history with attributes,Markov approximation or hidden Markov model or a hybrid mode using themachine learning module. (g) creating a set of visualizations showingthe various resulting performance metrics including conversion rate, reputilization %, and total value in the pipeline using the optimizationmodule. (h) using the trained predictive models as input to an automatedoptimization phase which recommends specific actions (interactions) totake to optimize the business outcome of prospects flowing through thereduced graph subject to constraints using the optimization module.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING FIGURES

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating an exemplary hardwarearchitecture of a computing device used in an embodiment of theinvention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating an exemplary logical architecturefor a client device, according to an embodiment of the invention.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing an exemplary architectural arrangementof clients, servers, and external services, according to an embodimentof the invention.

FIG. 4 is another block diagram illustrating an exemplary hardwarearchitecture of a computing device used in various embodiments of theinvention.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram illustrating an exemplary platformarchitecture used in an embodiment of the invention.

FIG. 6 is a diagram illustrating an exemplary graph of statetransitions, according to an embodiment of the invention.

FIG. 7 is diagram showing an exemplary of simple conditional transitionprobability between two states, A and B, according to an embodiment ofthe invention.

FIG. 8 is flow diagram illustrating virtual transition probabilitybetween states A and B according to an embodiment of the invention.

FIG. 9 is a block diagram of an exemplary state model for contact andopportunity, according to a preferred embodiment of the invention.

FIG. 10 is a flow diagram of exemplary opportunity state changesaccording to an embodiment of the invention.

FIG. 11 is a flow diagram of opportunity state changes according to anembodiment of the invention.

FIG. 12 is a flow diagram of exemplary contact state changes accordingto an embodiment of the invention.

FIG. 13 is a flow diagram of a second aspect of contact state changesaccording to an embodiment of the invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

One or more different inventions may be described in the presentapplication. Further, for one or more of the inventions describedherein, numerous alternative embodiments may be described; it should beappreciated that these are presented for illustrative purposes only andare not limiting of the inventions contained herein or the claimspresented herein in any way. One or more of the inventions may be widelyapplicable to numerous embodiments, as may be readily apparent from thedisclosure. In general, embodiments are described in sufficient detailto enable those skilled in the art to practice one or more of theinventions, and it should be appreciated that other embodiments may beutilized and that structural, logical, software, electrical and otherchanges may be made without departing from the scope of the particularinventions. Accordingly, one skilled in the art will recognize that oneor more of the inventions may be practiced with various modificationsand alterations. Particular features of one or more of the inventionsdescribed herein may be described with reference to one or moreparticular embodiments or figures that form a part of the presentdisclosure, and in which are shown, by way of illustration, specificembodiments of one or more of the inventions. It should be appreciated,however, that such features are not limited to usage in the one or moreparticular embodiments or figures with reference to which they aredescribed. The present disclosure is neither a literal description ofall embodiments of one or more of the inventions nor a listing offeatures of one or more of the inventions that must be present in allembodiments.

Headings of sections provided in this patent application and the titleof this patent application are for convenience only, and are not to betaken as limiting the disclosure in any way.

Devices that are in communication with each other need not be incontinuous communication with each other, unless expressly specifiedotherwise. In addition, devices that are in communication with eachother may communicate directly or indirectly through one or morecommunication means or intermediaries, logical or physical.

A description of an embodiment with several components in communicationwith each other does not imply that all such components are required. Tothe contrary, a variety of optional components may be described toillustrate a wide variety of possible embodiments of one or more of theinventions and in order to more fully illustrate one or more aspects ofthe inventions. Similarly, although process steps, method steps,algorithms or the like may be described in a sequential order, suchprocesses, methods and algorithms may generally be configured to work inalternate orders, unless specifically stated to the contrary. In otherwords, any sequence or order of steps that may be described in thispatent application does not, in and of itself, indicate a requirementthat the steps be performed in that order. The steps of describedprocesses may be performed in any order practical. Further, some stepsmay be performed simultaneously despite being described or implied asoccurring non-simultaneously (e.g., because one step is described afterthe other step). Moreover, the illustration of a process by itsdepiction in a drawing does not imply that the illustrated process isexclusive of other variations and modifications thereto, does not implythat the illustrated process or any of its steps are necessary to one ormore of the invention(s), and does not imply that the illustratedprocess is preferred. Also, steps are generally described once perembodiment, but this does not mean they must occur once, or that theymay only occur once each time a process, method, or algorithm is carriedout or executed. Some steps may be omitted in some embodiments or someoccurrences, or some steps may be executed more than once in a givenembodiment or occurrence.

When a single device or article is described herein, it will be readilyapparent that more than one device or article may be used in place of asingle device or article. Similarly, where more than one device orarticle is described herein, it will be readily apparent that a singledevice or article may be used in place of the more than one device orarticle.

The functionality or the features of a device may be alternativelyembodied by one or more other devices that are not explicitly describedas having such functionality or features. Thus, other embodiments of oneor more of the inventions need not include the device itself.

Techniques and mechanisms described or referenced herein will sometimesbe described in singular form for clarity. However, it should beappreciated that particular embodiments may include multiple iterationsof a technique or multiple instantiations of a mechanism unless notedotherwise. Process descriptions or blocks in figures should beunderstood as representing modules, segments, or portions of code whichinclude one or more executable instructions for implementing specificlogical functions or steps in the process. Alternate implementations areincluded within the scope of embodiments of the present invention inwhich, for example, functions may be executed out of order from thatshown or discussed, including substantially concurrently or in reverseorder, depending on the functionality involved, as would be understoodby those having ordinary skill in the art.

Hardware Architecture

Generally, the techniques disclosed herein may be implemented onhardware or a combination of software and hardware. For example, theymay be implemented in an operating system kernel, in a separate userprocess, in a library package bound into network applications, on aspecially constructed machine, on an application-specific integratedcircuit (ASIC), or on a network interface card.

Software/hardware hybrid implementations of at least some of theembodiments disclosed herein may be implemented on a programmablenetwork-resident machine (which should be understood to includeintermittently connected network-aware machines) selectively activatedor reconfigured by a computer program stored in memory. Such networkdevices may have multiple network interfaces that may be configured ordesigned to utilize different types of network communication protocols.A general architecture for some of these machines may be describedherein in order to illustrate one or more exemplary means by which agiven unit of functionality may be implemented. According to specificembodiments, at least some of the features or functionalities of thevarious embodiments disclosed herein may be implemented on one or moregeneral-purpose computers associated with one or more networks, such asfor example an end-user computer system, a client computer, a networkserver or other server system, a mobile computing device (e.g., tabletcomputing device, mobile phone, smartphone, laptop, or other appropriatecomputing device), a consumer electronic device, a music player, or anyother suitable electronic device, router, switch, or other suitabledevice, or any combination thereof. In at least some embodiments, atleast some of the features or functionalities of the various embodimentsdisclosed herein may be implemented in one or more virtualized computingenvironments (e.g., network computing clouds, virtual machines hosted onone or more physical computing machines, or other appropriate virtualenvironments).

Referring now to FIG. 1, there is shown a block diagram depicting anexemplary computing device 10 suitable for implementing at least aportion of the features or functionalities disclosed herein. Computingdevice 10 may be, for example, any one of the computing machines listedin the previous paragraph, or indeed any other electronic device capableof executing software- or hardware-based instructions according to oneor more programs stored in memory. Computing device 10 may be configuredto communicate with a plurality of other computing devices, such asclients or servers, over communications networks such as a wide areanetwork a metropolitan area network, a local area network, a wirelessnetwork, the Internet, or any other network, using known protocols forsuch communication, whether wireless or wired.

In one embodiment, computing device 10 includes one or more centralprocessing units (CPU) 12, one or more interfaces 15, and one or morebusses 14 (such as a peripheral component interconnect (PCI) bus). Whenacting under the control of appropriate software or firmware, CPU 12 maybe responsible for implementing specific functions associated with thefunctions of a specifically configured computing device or machine. Forexample, in at least one embodiment, a computing device 10 may beconfigured or designed to function as a server system utilizing CPU 12,local memory 11 and/or remote memory 16, and interface(s) 15. In atleast one embodiment, CPU 12 may be caused to perform one or more of thedifferent types of functions and/or operations under the control ofsoftware modules or components, which for example, may include anoperating system and any appropriate applications software, drivers, andthe like.

CPU 12 may include one or more processors 13 such as, for example, aprocessor from one of the Intel, ARM, Qualcomm, and AMD families ofmicroprocessors. In some embodiments, processors 13 may includespecially designed hardware such as application-specific integratedcircuits (ASICs), electrically erasable programmable read-only memories(EEPROMs), field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), and so forth, forcontrolling operations of computing device 10. In a specific embodiment,a local memory 11 (such as non-volatile random access memory (RAM)and/or read-only memory (ROM), including for example one or more levelsof cached memory) may also form part of CPU 12. However, there are manydifferent ways in which memory may be coupled to system 10. Memory 11may be used for a variety of purposes such as, for example, cachingand/or storing data, programming instructions, and the like. It shouldbe further appreciated that CPU 12 may be one of a variety ofsystem-on-a-chip (SOC) type hardware that may include additionalhardware such as memory or graphics processing chips, such as a QualcommSNAPDRAGON™ or Samsung EXYNOS™ CPU as are becoming increasingly commonin the art, such as for use in mobile devices or integrated devices.

As used herein, the term “processor” is not limited merely to thoseintegrated circuits referred to in the art as a processor, a mobileprocessor, or a microprocessor, but broadly refers to a microcontroller,a microcomputer, a programmable logic controller, anapplication-specific integrated circuit, and any other programmablecircuit.

In one embodiment, interfaces 15 are provided as network interface cards(NICs). Generally, NICs control the sending and receiving of datapackets over a computer network; other types of interfaces 15 may forexample support other peripherals used with computing device 10. Amongthe interfaces that may be provided are Ethernet interfaces, frame relayinterfaces, cable interfaces, DSL interfaces, token ring interfaces,graphics interfaces, and the like. In addition, various types ofinterfaces may be provided such as, for example, universal serial bus(USB), Serial, Ethernet, FIREWIRE™, THUNDERBOLT™, PCI, parallel, radiofrequency (RF), BLUETOOTH™, near-field communications (e.g., usingnear-field magnetics), 802.11 (WiFi), frame relay, TCP/IP, ISDN, fastEthernet interfaces, Gigabit Ethernet interfaces, Serial ATA (SATA) orexternal SATA (ESATA) interfaces, high-definition multimedia interface(HDMI), digital visual interface (DVI), analog or digital audiointerfaces, asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) interfaces, high-speedserial interface (HSSI) interfaces, Point of Sale (POS) interfaces,fiber data distributed interfaces (FDDIs), and the like. Generally, suchinterfaces 15 may include physical ports appropriate for communicationwith appropriate media. In some cases, they may also include anindependent processor (such as a dedicated audio or video processor, asis common in the art for high-fidelity A/V hardware interfaces) and, insome instances, volatile and/or non-volatile memory (e.g., RAM).

Although the system shown and described above illustrates one specificarchitecture for a computing device 10 for implementing one or more ofthe inventions described herein, it is by no means the only devicearchitecture on which at least a portion of the features and techniquesdescribed herein may be implemented. For example, architectures havingone or any number of processors 13 may be used, and such processors 13may be present in a single device or distributed among any number ofdevices. In one embodiment, a single processor 13 handles communicationsas well as routing computations, while in other embodiments a separatededicated communications processor may be provided. In variousembodiments, different types of features or functionalities may beimplemented in a system according to the invention that includes aclient device (such as a tablet device or smartphone running clientsoftware) and server systems (such as a server system described in moredetail below).

Regardless of network device configuration, the system of the presentinvention may employ one or more memories or memory modules (such as,for example, remote memory block 16 and local memory 11) configured tostore data, program instructions for the general-purpose networkoperations, or other information relating to the functionality of theembodiments described herein (or any combinations of the above). Programinstructions may control execution of or comprise an operating systemand/or one or more applications, for example. Memory 16 or memories 11,16 may also be configured to store data structures, configuration data,encryption data, historical system operations information, or any otherspecific or generic non-program information described herein.

Because such information and program instructions may be employed toimplement one or more systems or methods described herein, at least somenetwork device embodiments may include nontransitory machine-readablestorage media, which, for example, may be configured or designed tostore program instructions, state information, and the like forperforming various operations described herein. Examples of suchnontransitory machine-readable storage media include, but are notlimited to, magnetic media such as hard disks, floppy disks, andmagnetic tape; optical media such as CD-ROM disks; magneto-optical mediasuch as optical disks, and hardware devices that are speciallyconfigured to store and perform program instructions, such as read-onlymemory devices (ROM), flash memory (as is common in mobile devices andintegrated systems), solid state drives (SSD) and “hybrid SSD” storagedrives that may combine physical components of solid state and hard diskdrives in a single hardware device (as are becoming increasingly commonin the art with regard to personal computers), memristor memory, randomaccess memory (RAM), and the like. It should be appreciated that suchstorage means may be integral and non-removable (such as RAM hardwaremodules that may be soldered onto a motherboard or otherwise integratedinto an electronic device), or they may be removable such as swappableflash memory modules (such as “thumb drives” or other removable mediadesigned for rapidly exchanging physical storage devices),“hot-swappable” hard disk drives or solid state drives, removableoptical storage discs, or other such removable media, and that suchintegral and removable storage media may be utilized interchangeably.Examples of program instructions include both object code, such as maybe produced by a compiler, machine code, such as may be produced by anassembler or a linker, byte code, such as may be generated by forexample a JAVA™ compiler and may be executed using a Java virtualmachine or equivalent, or files containing higher level code that may beexecuted by the computer using an interpreter (for example, scriptswritten in Python, Perl, Ruby, Groovy, or any other scripting language).

In some embodiments, systems according to the present invention may beimplemented on a standalone computing system. Referring now to FIG. 2,there is shown a block diagram depicting a typical exemplaryarchitecture of one or more embodiments or components thereof on astandalone computing system. Computing device 20 includes processors 21that may run software that carry out one or more functions orapplications of embodiments of the invention, such as for example aclient application 24. Processors 21 may carry out computinginstructions under control of an operating system 22 such as, forexample, a version of Microsoft's WINDOWS™ operating system, Apple's MacOS/X or iOS operating systems, some variety of the Linux operatingsystem, Google's ANDROID™ operating system, or the like. In many cases,one or more shared services 23 may be operable in system 20, and may beuseful for providing common services to client applications 24. Services23 may for example be WINDOWS™ services, user-space common services in aLinux environment, or any other type of common service architecture usedwith operating system 21. Input devices 28 may be of any type suitablefor receiving user input, including for example a keyboard, touchscreen,microphone (for example, for voice input), mouse, touchpad, trackball,or any combination thereof. Output devices 27 may be of any typesuitable for providing output to one or more users, whether remote orlocal to system 20, and may include for example one or more screens forvisual output, speakers, printers, or any combination thereof. Memory 25may be random-access memory having any structure and architecture knownin the art, for use by processors 21, for example to run software.Storage devices 26 may be any magnetic, optical, mechanical, memristor,or electrical storage device for storage of data in digital form (suchas those described above). Examples of storage devices 26 include flashmemory, magnetic hard drive, CD-ROM, and/or the like.

In some embodiments, systems of the present invention may be implementedon a distributed computing network, such as one having any number ofclients and/or servers. Referring now to FIG. 3, there is shown a blockdiagram depicting an exemplary architecture 30 for implementing at leasta portion of a system according to an embodiment of the invention on adistributed computing network. According to the embodiment, any numberof clients 33 may be provided. Each client 33 may run software forimplementing client-side portions of the present invention; clients maycomprise a system 20 such as that illustrated above. In addition, anynumber of servers 32 may be provided for handling requests received fromone or more clients 33. Clients 33 and servers 32 may communicate withone another via one or more electronic networks 31, which may be invarious embodiments any of the Internet, a wide area network, a mobiletelephony network (such as CDMA or GSM cellular networks), a wirelessnetwork (such as WiFi, Wimax, LTE, and so forth), or a local areanetwork (or indeed any network topology known in the art; the inventiondoes not prefer any one network topology over any other). Networks 31may be implemented using any known network protocols, including forexample wired and/or wireless protocols.

In addition, in some embodiments, servers 32 may call external services37 when needed to obtain additional information, or to refer toadditional data concerning a particular call. Communications withexternal services 37 may take place, for example, via one or morenetworks 31. In various embodiments, external services 37 may compriseweb-enabled services or functionality related to or installed on thehardware device itself. For example, in an embodiment where clientapplications 24 are implemented on a smartphone or other electronicdevice, client applications 24 may obtain information stored in a serversystem 32 in the cloud or on an external service 37 deployed on one ormore of a particular enterprise's or user's premises.

In some embodiments of the invention, clients 33 or servers 32 (or both)may make use of one or more specialized services or appliances that maybe deployed locally or remotely across one or more networks 31. Forexample, one or more databases 34 may be used or referred to by one ormore embodiments of the invention. It should be understood by one havingordinary skill in the art that databases 34 may be arranged in a widevariety of architectures and using a wide variety of data access andmanipulation means. For example, in various embodiments one or moredatabases 34 may comprise a relational database system using astructured query language (SQL), while others may comprise analternative data storage technology such as those referred to in the artas “NoSQL” (for example, Hadoop Cassandra, Google BigTable, and soforth). In some embodiments, variant database architectures such ascolumn-oriented databases, in-memory databases, clustered databases,distributed databases, or even flat file data repositories may be usedaccording to the invention. It will be appreciated by one havingordinary skill in the art that any combination of known or futuredatabase technologies may be used as appropriate, unless a specificdatabase technology or a specific arrangement of components is specifiedfor a particular embodiment herein. Moreover, it should be appreciatedthat the term “database” as used herein may refer to a physical databasemachine, a cluster of machines acting as a single database system, or alogical database within an overall database management system. Unless aspecific meaning is specified for a given use of the term “database”, itshould be construed to mean any of these senses of the word, all ofwhich are understood as a plain meaning of the term “database” by thosehaving ordinary skill in the art.

Similarly, most embodiments of the invention may make use of one or moresecurity systems 36 and configuration systems 35. Security andconfiguration management are common information technology (IT) and webfunctions, and some amount of each are generally associated with any ITor web systems. It should be understood by one having ordinary skill inthe art that any configuration or security subsystems known in the artnow or in the future may be used in conjunction with embodiments of theinvention without limitation, unless a specific security 36 orconfiguration system 35 or approach is specifically required by thedescription of any specific embodiment.

FIG. 4 shows an exemplary overview of a computer system 40 as may beused in any of the various locations throughout the system. It isexemplary of any computer that may execute code to process data. Variousmodifications and changes may be made to computer system 40 withoutdeparting from the broader scope of the system and method disclosedherein. Central processor unit (CPU) 41 is connected to bus 42, to whichbus is also connected memory 43, nonvolatile memory 44, display 47,input/output (I/O) unit 48, and network interface card (NIC) 53. I/Ounit 48 may, typically, be connected to keyboard 49, pointing device 50,hard disk 52, and real-time clock 51. NIC 53 connects to network 54,which may be the Internet or a local network, which local network may ormay not have connections to the Internet. Also shown as part of system40 is power supply unit 45 connected, in this example, to a mainalternating current (AC) supply 46. Not shown are batteries that couldbe present, and many other devices and modifications that are well knownbut are not applicable to the specific novel functions of the currentsystem and method disclosed herein. It should be appreciated that someor all components illustrated may be combined, such as in variousintegrated applications, for example Qualcomm or Samsungsystem-on-a-chip (SOC) devices, or whenever it may be appropriate tocombine multiple capabilities or functions into a single hardware device(for instance, in mobile devices such as smartphones, video gameconsoles, in-vehicle computer systems such as navigation or multimediasystems in automobiles, or other integrated hardware devices).

In various embodiments, functionality for implementing systems ormethods of the present invention may be distributed among any number ofclient and/or server components. For example, various software modulesmay be implemented for performing various functions in connection withthe present invention, and such modules may be variously implemented torun on server and/or client components.

Conceptual Architecture

FIG. 5 is a block diagram illustrating an exemplary platformarchitecture used in an embodiment of the invention. Data is received bythe platform from a variety of real-world sources as time-stampedevents. Other data is not event-like, consisting of descriptiveattributes. One feed of data [4] comes from voice telephony andmulti-channel communications infrastructure such as a contact center.Other data [1] comes from external platforms that serve as a datarepository for known information regarding contacts, leads,opportunities and accounts. Other data sources [2] provide informationabout a prospect such as firmographic data (in the B2B case) ordemographic data (in the B2C case).

The module [5] takes each event and adds it as a new edge on a directedgraph corresponding to a transition between 2 states represented by theevent. The additional available data attributes are attached asattributes to either the new edges or to vertices in the graph. The rawevent graph (constructed from these raw events) can be large and but bepersisted to permanent disk storage if necessary.

The graph reducer module [8] is responsible for reducing or simplifyingthe raw event graph to a level that is appropriate for representingsignificant states and transitions of interest. By significant we meanstates or transitions that capture an important experience, interactionor transaction that is part of the optimization objective or constraint.Two modes are supported. One in which the system statisticallydetermines which experiences, interactions or transactions are importantusing supervised machine learning (details provided later). The otherapproach is for a human administrator to provide an “Assumed SalesProcess Graph” [6], which defines what is currently believed to be theimportant states and transitions of interest (and therefore thecorresponding experiences, interactions, transactions and valuecontributions).

The machine learning module [10] uses the historical data in the reducedgraph to build predictive models of the conditional probability oftransition between these states of interest.

Module [15] is the optimizer, which takes as input (i) a list ofdecision variables the optimizer is allowed to manipulate, (ii) anobjective function definition to be optimized by changing the decisionvariables and (iii) a list of constraints (rules) that must not beviolated by the output from the optimizer. Optimization problems of thisscale cannot be solved by traditional linear solver engines with so,optionally, a solver based on Approximate Dynamic Programming (ADP) isused.

The outputs [17] include the values of the decision variables chosen bythe optimizer, together with various performance metrics calculated bythe analyzer [16].

FIG. 6 is a diagram illustrating an exemplary graph of statetransitions, according to an embodiment of the invention. The Edgeweights are based on transition probability and/or value. The filtersare on edge weights, counts, % or % of log(count). The graph showsattributes on edges or vertices. The community is shown on each metavertex.

FIG. 7 is diagram showing an exemplary of simple conditional transitionprobability between two states, A and B, according to an embodiment ofthe invention. The simple case of a transition between two states wherethere is only one possible path is shown in Error! Reference source notfound . . . . A supervised machine learning model can be trained usinghistorical examples of this transition that include the N attributes x1,x2, . . . , xN known on input at state A. Cases that arrived at B arelabeled success. The machine learning model can then be used to computethe probability of an entity in state A transitioning to state B forvarious values of x1, . . . , xN.

FIG. 8 is flow diagram illustrating virtual transition probabilitybetween states A and B according to an embodiment of the invention. Amore typical case is shown in Error! Reference source not found. wherethere are many possible pathways between A and B. Note that the directtransition A to B may not occur in the historical data. Nevertheless, bytaking all historical data cases that started at A and labeling thosecases as successful that completed in B then we can again train asupervised machine learning model to compute the transition conditionalprobability P_(ALL) from A to B given the known parameters X at A. Butof course P_(ALL) (B|A,X) says nothing about how the cases that did notmake it to B are distributed across states (A,C,D and E). In the casewhere the X are the same on all states then this reduces to a MarkovChain.

FIG. 9 is a block diagram of an exemplary state model for contact andopportunity, according to a preferred embodiment of the invention. As anexample of one of many possible application of the platform we focus inthis section on a B2B use case of customer interactions in thepre-pipeline. By interactions we mean here information exchange eventssuch as a human-to-human phone call, an email, text message, etc. Inthis “pre-pipeline” case we wish to optimize the interactions that takeplace between a selling agent and an individual prior to the first humanface-to-face meeting in the sales process. The post-human-meeting salespipeline is well understood and there is considerable prior art in thisarea.

Good “pre-pipeline” management really requires a deeper linkage betweenmore traditionally separate sales and marketing responsibilities. Inessence the platform represents the application of the next generationof sales operations techniques in the of domain sales development.

FIG. 10 is a graph diagram of exemplary opportunity state changesaccording to an embodiment of the invention. Good “pre-pipeline”management really requires a deeper linkage between more traditionallyseparate sales and marketing responsibilities. In essence the platformrepresents the application of the next generation of sales operationstechniques in the of domain sales development.

FIG. 11 is a graph diagram of opportunity state changes according to anembodiment of the invention. In this use case the ISEP platform providesthe insight, modeling and optimal management of the interactionsequences and interaction types to drive the creation of a B2B meetingor opportunity.

FIG. 12 is a graph diagram of exemplary contact state changes accordingto an embodiment of the invention. The output decision variables areconfigurable but would typically include the sequence of activities(interactions) to perform and the individual sales reps to be assignedto the interactions.

FIG. 13 is a flow diagram of a second aspect of contact state changesaccording to an embodiment of the invention. Certain interactions leadto opportunity conversion % by lead source. Certain interactions lead toopportunity conversion % by segment. Certain interactions lead toopportunity conversion % by region. Certain interactions Lead toopportunity conversion % by tenure of sales rep Measure hit rate (aspreviously defined), by lead source by segment, by region. TargetRollover % (% of value of opps with a close date in a period that rollinto the following period) by segment, by region and by sales person.

Details of the Supervised Machine Learning Models

The platform supports several supervised machine learning algorithmsincluding:

Distributed Random Forest

Deep Learning

Generalized Linear

Gradient Boosted Machine

Naive Bayes

In addition, Stacking Ensemble learning is supported whereby asecond-level “meta learner” is applied to a group of base learners. Forexample, a meta learner using the Generalized Linear Model can beapplied on top of an ensemble of Deep Learning, Random Forest, GradientBoosted Machine, and Generalized Linear Model.

Stacking is a way to build the most accurate predictive model for theprobability of a transition between any two nodes of the reduced graph.

Inclusion of “Hidden” (Unobservable) States

In some cases, a state of the graph may not be directly observable(definable) using the input event data, but knowledge of such a statemay be very important from the business point of view. An example ofsuch a hidden state is the intent of the prospect. A skilled salesperson will infer the intention from human interactions but there is nodirect measure of “intent” available in the data. However, the platformsupports the definition and computations with such hidden states in thegraph by use of a Hidden Markov Model. This allows the hidden state(s)to be included in the reduced graph.

State Survival Analysis

The supervised machine learning models described above capture theprobability of the state transition. However, unless state dwell time isincluded as an input attribute, they don't provide insight on thetemporal character of the transition and do not take into account thatthe data is right-censored in time. A common approach is simply to lookat the distribution of dwell times in a specific state. However a deeperinsight and proper treatment of data censoring can be gained by applyingstatistical time-to-event or “Survival” analysis. In this point of view,a prospect “lives” in a certain state for a period of time beforeexperiencing a “death” of instantaneous classification into anotherstate. This enables a deeper stratification study of which attributesinfluence the time to transition and these can be used to accelerate thetransition or select prospects who will transition more quickly.

As well as being able to compute survival function, hazard function anddensity, log-rank tests can be used to test the null hypothesis that thesurvival functions of any two groups of prospects are different for thisparticular transition.

Optimization Model

The optimizer is configured by the administrator to define the decisionvariables, objective function and constraints. Examples are providedbelow

Decision Variables

Which specific agents to assign to specific prospects

The specific time and channel on which to contact a prospect

A specific message to give to a prospect

A specific experience to push to a prospect

A specific transaction to propose to a prospect

A specific state transition to recommend to a prospect

Discussion of Constraints

-   -   Maximum concurrent capacity of each sales representative.        Typical sales reps cannot handle more than 8 concurrent        opportunities.    -   Balance utilization of sales reps.    -   An upper budget limit may be posed as a constraint

Discussion of Objective Functions

E.g. expected profit (sales revenues less costs incurred)

Optimization Algorithm

The optimization problem here of sequential (multistage) stochasticoptimization is extremely challenging. The platform uses a genericApproximate Dynamic Programming (ADP) framework with options for fourdifferent classes of optimization policy functions as listed below.

Terminology in this area is quite fragment in both academia and industrybut we point out that this approach is general and includesreinforcement learning and optimization by simulation as limiting cases.

Myopic Policies

Optimize cost now but don't use forecasts or representation of futuredecisions

Look-Ahead Policies

Explicitly optimize over a future horizon with approx. future info andactions

Policy Function Approximations

-   -   Directly return an action in a given state (no imbedded        optimization or forecast of future info)

Value Function Approximations (Greedy Policies)

-   -   Approximation of the value of being in a future state as the        result of a decision made now. Impact on future is solely in the        value function

Benefits of ADP Algorithm

-   -   Scalable    -   Can be used for decision under uncertainty    -   Can be used where the utility function is not available in a        closed for expression but is the result of simulation.

The skilled person will be aware of a range of possible modifications ofthe various embodiments described above. Accordingly, the presentinvention is defined by the claims and their equivalents.

What is claimed is:
 1. A system for intelligent sales engagement,comprising: a pre-integrated graph module comprising at least aplurality of programming instructions stored in a memory and operatingon a processor of a network-connected computing device; a machinelearning module comprising at least a plurality of programminginstructions stored in a memory and operating on a processor of anetwork-connected computing device; and an optimization modulecomprising at least a plurality of programming instructions stored in amemory and operating on a processor of a network-connected computingdevice; wherein, the pre-integrated graph module: (a) monitors andcaptures events from source systems and constructs an event graph ofmultichannel interactions and attributes including firm demographics andsales rep attributes; (b) automatically reduces the graph to thesignificant state transitions, effectively reverse engineering the salesprocess from available actual event data; (c) runs in an adaptive modewhere reducing the graph happens periodically or continuously; and (d)supports different pre-defined topologies of funnel, circle and journey;wherein the machine learning module: (e) trains a family of predictivemachine-learning models for any transition of interest (or for alltransitions) of the reduced graph and performs validation of theaccuracy (AUC) of each predictive machine learning model; (f) choosesdifferent model types for different transitions based on model withhighest accuracy, model then estimates the conditional probability ofthe transition from the starting to ending state potentially includingall known input attributes at the starting state; (g) accepts arbitrarynumbers of input attributes of different types on each statetransitions; (h) runs with either full state history with attributes,Markov approximation or hidden Markov model or a hybrid mode; and (i)supports a hidden Markov model to represent the hidden “intent” state ofthe contact or lead; wherein the optimization module: (j) creates a setof visualizations showing the various resulting performance metricsincluding conversion rate, representative utilization percentage, andtotal value in the pipeline; (k) uses the trained predictive models asinput to an automated optimization phase which recommends specificactions (interactions) to take to optimize the business outcome ofprospects flowing through the reduced graph subject to constraints; (l)supports optimization under uncertainty; (m) schedules interactionsbetween agents and prospects to maximize an objective; and (n)configures, in addition to existing model optimization, optimizationexperiments that are executed and is then able to run experiments,analyze the results and self-learn giving rise to increased utility. 2.The system of claim 1, whereas the expected sales process may be enteredas input to guide graph reduction and/or highlight deviations fromexpected flows.
 3. The system of claim 1, wherein the graph may alsorepresent B2B flows and B2C flows.
 4. The system of claim 1 wherein themachine learning module may learn or reverse engineer a process based onhistorical data.
 5. The system of claim 1 wherein, the machine learningmodule may account for the multi-dimensional nature of social influence,and the role of advocates who aren't customers.
 6. The system of claim 1wherein, the machine learning module may shift to ongoing relationshipsbeyond individual transactions.
 7. The system of claim 1 wherein, themachine learning module runs in an adaptive mode where retraininghappens periodically or continuously.
 8. The system of claim 1 whereinthe optimization module can use the trained predictive models can beused to support a “what-if” user interface for human users to understandthe effect of change of attributes or graph structure.
 9. A method forintelligent sales engagement, the method comprising the steps of: (a)monitoring and extracting sets of customer relationship sales data fromsource systems into a pre-integrated graph module comprising at least aplurality of programming instructions stored in a memory and operatingon a processor of a network-connected computing device; (b) constructingan event driven relational graph of multichannel interactions andattributes including firm demographics and sales rep attributes usingthe pre-integrated graph module; (c) reducing the graph to thesignificant state transition occurrences, effectively reverseengineering the sales process from available actual event dataexpressing the resultant graph in one of a plurality of pre-definedtopologies such as: funnel, circle and journey using the pre-integratedgraph module; (d) training a family of predictive machine-learningmodels for any transition of interest (or for all transitions) of thereduced graph and performs validation of the accuracy (AUC) of eachpredictive machine learning model using a machine learning modulecomprising at least a plurality of programming instructions stored in amemory and operating on a processor of a network-connected computingdevice; (e) choosing different model types using the machine learningmodule for different transitions based on model with highest accuracy,chosen model then estimates conditional probability of the transitionfrom the starting to ending state potentially including all known inputattributes at the starting state; (f) running either full state historywith attributes, Markov approximation or hidden Markov model or a hybridmode using the machine learning module; (g) creating a set ofvisualizations showing the various resulting performance metricsincluding conversion rate, rep utilization %, and total value in thepipeline using the optimization module; (h) using the trained predictivemodels as input to an automated optimization phase which recommendsspecific actions (interactions) to take to optimize the business outcomeof prospects flowing through the reduced graph subject to constraintsusing the optimization module.
 10. The method of claim 9, wherein theexpected sales process may be entered as input to guide graph reductionand to highlight deviations from expected flows.
 11. The method of claim9, wherein the graph may also represent B2B flows and B2C flows.
 12. Themethod of claim 9, wherein the machine learning module may learn orreverse engineer a process based on historical data.
 13. The method ofclaim 9, wherein the machine learning module may account for themulti-dimensional nature of social influence, and the role of advocateswho aren't customers.
 14. The method of claim 9, wherein the machinelearning module may shift to ongoing relationships beyond individualtransactions.
 15. The method of claim 9, wherein the machine learningmodule runs in an adaptive mode where retraining happens periodically orcontinuously.
 16. The method of claim 9 wherein the optimization modulecan use the trained predictive models can be used to support a “what-if”user interface for human users to understand the effect of change ofattributes or graph structure.